We estimate the causal effect of early retirement on mortality for blue-collar workers. To overcome the problem of endogenous selection, we exploit an exogenous change in unemployment insurance rules in Austria that allowed workers in eligible regions to withdraw from the workforce up to 3.5...

In this Paper, we study the role of subsidies to fertility in ensuring the political viability of unfunded social security (SS). In our model, agents are heterogeneous in age and income. Young generations confront promises made previously by older generations, and in turn choose current levels...

We show that measurement error in the constructed price of child care can explain why previous Australian studies have found partnered women’s labour supply to be unresponsive to child care prices. Through improved data and improved construction of the child care price variable, we find child...

Using data from the HILDA (Household Income and Labour Dynamics), this paper examines the implications of child care costs on maternal employment status by distinguishing between full-time and part-time work. Our empirical approach uses an ordered probit model taking into account the endogeneity...

Many countries are currently expanding access to child care for young children. But are all children equally likely to benefit from such expansions? We address this question by adopting a marginal treatment effects framework. We study the West German setting where high quality center-based care...

The supply of formal childcare has expanded in many developed countries. There is ambiguity, however, in the theory that the entry of care providers increases consumers’ surplus and the welfare of households in a market with differentiated services, such as childcare. This study empirically...

Health expenditures as a share of GDP have more than tripled over the last half century. A common conjecture is that this is primarily a consequence of rising real per capita income, which more than doubled over the same period. We investigate this hypothesis empirically by instrumenting for...

Private pension provision faces the challenging task of providing stable income streams during retirement. The challenge has increased markedly in the last decades due to volatile financial markets, falling interest rates and the withdrawal of employers and external insurers as risk bearers of...

This paper studies how an increase in the minimum retirement age affects the labor market behavior of older workers. Between 2000 and 2006 the Austrian government gradually increased the early retirement age from 60 to 62.2 for men and from 55 to 57.2 for women. Using administrative data on the...

The retirement decisions of spouses may be interdependent for various reasons: similarity of tastes, joint assets, sharing rules for income and housework, or complementarity of leisure. Because of data limitations, only a few empirical studies exist on this topic. From a policy point of view...